In John 21:15-17, Jesus asked Peter three times,
“Do you love Me?” or “Do you agape Me?” Peter
had to answer three times before he got it right
because he was trying to answer Jesus in the
language of the day. He just didn’t understand
what Jesus was asking. Agape is the key to the
command to love. It’s the key to loving as Jesus
loved.
To get the love of God—the agape kind of love—
over to mankind, Jesus entered into a blood
covenant with God. With the sacrifice of His own
blood, Jesus said, “I agape!” To agape is an act
of the will. It is a spoken covenant from which
there is no retreat, and about which there is no
debate.
So you can get in it and receive it by partaking
of His covenant, or you can stay on the outside
of it and go straight to hell. Either way, God will
love you all the way there because the covenant
has been made. He said, I love! And that was that.
Jesus used His will to love. And you must use
your will to receive. But without the help of God,
we don’t have the natural ability to love
unconditionally. And He doesn’t expect us to
keep the commandment to love by our flesh—
our natural man. That’s where the old covenant
was a problem. The children of Israel demonstrated
just how weak this flesh really is.
Today, however, we have the blood of Jesus,
His Name that is above every name and the Spirit
of Almighty God dwelling inside us. That’s Love
Himself living in us. All we have to do is make
the decision to keep the commandment.
God will take care of the rest. But if we don’t
commit to the commandment to love, we face
the consequences in 1 John 2:10-11: “He that
loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there
is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that
hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in
darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth,
because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.”
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